THIS SITE IS DEVOTED TO THE OTTAWA FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT

"Youth should be radical. Youth should demand change in the world. Youth should not accept the old order if the world is to move on. But the old orders should not be moved easily -- certainly not at the mere whim or behest of youth. There must be clash and if youth hasn't enough force or fervor to produce the clash the world grows stale and stagnant and sour in decay."

-William Allen White

THE NEWS FLOW

Oct. 20, 2009. Documents obtained by the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. Email exchanges between President Allan Rock
and publisher of the Ottawa Citizen Jim Orban
reveal how the University of Ottawa controls the media.

Nov 18 2008. Student Marc Kelly sends an email to all professors, all support staff, and all students with a link to a Cable TV talk show on Academic Freedom that he appeared on to discuss his recent politically-motivated deregistration by the Rock administration. Marc Kelly believes his testimony provides the proper context surrounding "the recording". (read the email)

Free thought, conformity, and grades are on the minds of students:

Nov 12 2008. Talk Ottawa's James Hendricks interviews internationally-recognized expert on academic freedom Prof. Denis Rancourt about the ongoing battle at the University of Ottawa.

52 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I hope this message will not be filtered and censored by the administrator of this website here, with this hope I have a few words of advice for Mr. Kelly. Mr. Kelly, please stop sending all these mass emails about your situation to all of the students every day. Your emails are nothing but spam to many students on campus. I have read your paper on your research right after I got your first of the many emails, and the paper was just anything but science. Your only tool in your research was your interpretation of human dialogue, behaviour and etc using several matrices which particularly cannot be of any use to anyone in the physics. Perhaps if you have done your research in the faculty of Social Sciences or at most in department of Math at the faculty of Science, you had a better luck on getting it approved. Perhaps if you had used more ethical ways in writing your paper rather than bashing at everyone at the faculty in your paper, you might have had my support at least. The sources you used in your paper are mostly composed of your own experience with the professors at the university, which cannot be generalized for other professors, students or in fact in other departments, universities, and for the general public. Hence the value of your findings in your research might be of no importance. Furthermore, I did not see a single set of data to support your claims, and all you wrote was about your own experience with the professors at the university, which is a very small sample to derive conclusions from. Assuming your findings have some scientific value, your way of demonstrating these findings are not only offensive, inappropriate, but also they are very unprofessional. In almost every single page of your research paper, you make foot note references to you professors, and the officials of the university with little respect and accuse them of various behaviour problems without demonstrating proof. This is absolutely unethical in science, as it is noted that scientific material, and theories cannot be centered on one person, and that your “test subjects” in this case “your professors and faculty administrators” should not be named. You use such amateur methods in writing your paper, yet you ask people to show support and feel empathy for you? Do you think you are dealing with a bunch of cowards? Sure, Mr. Rock was harsh on you perhaps, and as he admits it, I too agree that he should have not dealt not only with you, but any other student in the same way. But consider this my friend: you write a paper, your physics honours project in fact, based on something remote of physics, with the use of the names of the professors of this university in an insulting way, and want that those professors and Mr. Rock to treat you with cookies and candies? Well I should tell you that you are dead wrong. In Canada there is a law that states you cannot reveal someone’s identity in a study without their consent. Definitely if someone wrote a research paper on me, I would take the path that your professor did, and would stop you in doing so. Mr. Kelly, please retain from sending further useless information to our emails, anyone who enjoys these can sign up for it, but those who don’t like it and have not signed up for this type of subscription should not be getting these types of spam. I however, surely hope that you could come up with some solution to your situation, and your situate can be resolved peacefully without the need to the use of all these mass media coverage of yours.

Just thought I would leave the same post I left on Allan Rock's blog. I will be going in to the SFUO's office today to lodge a complaint against Marc Kelly and his abuse of the e-mail listing of students, and then I will go to the administration should the SFUO do nothing.

Mr. Rock,

I commend you on your level headed response to one Marc Kelly upon his intrusion into your office to discuss his academic situation. I have read your letter to him written the follow day, and while you state that you regret your behaviour towards him, I can only say that I believe you showed a great deal of self-control in a situation that must be beyond frustrating. I would also like to remind you that Marc Kelly does not represent the student body as a whole, he and the SFUO do not speak with my voice, or the voices of many other students on this campus when they use extreme tactics and bullying to impose their views or wishes on the admin. or anyone else for that matter. I think there is a problem of communication between the university’s administration and we the students, or has been in the past, and that our academic appeal process is quite frequently shut down. However, I think you in your new leadership role will need time to address these issues and that the behaviour of Mr. Kelly is aggressive, entitled and self-righteous. Furthermore, he did undergo the full academic appeal process and suffers now only because of his own pride and obnoxious behaviour. Please do not judge our student body by his behaviour. I look forward to seeing the improvements to the U of O you bring forth while serving as our President.

Marc, the only reason I have been following your blog lately is that I have a shred of hope that you will come to your senses and give up your foolish crusade. You know, you can't smell freedom if your nose is stuck way up Denis Rancourt's ass.

I agree with the other posters. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that the staff are handling this as well as they could, certainly yelling at you does not help the process, but grow up already. The world doesn't need to know that you were yelled at. That's something you tell your mother, or even your girlfriend maybe. YES some people would care. But there's so damn many of us who don't need to be getting these e-mails that it's quite insulting when you send them!

I could not agree more with the comments that have already been posted on this issue. In all honesty Mr. Kelly I don't want any more of your emails. If you are trying to get a point across to the students, profs and administrators then you should do it in an unbiased manner, or perhaps explain the context better. My advice to you, Mr.Kelly, is that perhaps you should think a little more before you act, also, if you begin to act more professionally or respectably, you will probably be able to get more accomplished.Mr. Kelly please take me off of your email list, awitt099@uottawa.ca.

Mr.Rock kudos to you for dealing with this issue in a level headed way. I understand your reaction to Mr. Kelly's visit to your office.

Marc, You are acting childish. I've read your posts and arguments and I have to say, I agree with the administration. You wrote an article found at ( http://www.thefulcrum.ca/letters/free-your-mind-grades,-and-start-questioning-learning-processes-imposed-you )ranting about grades and crushing your creativity or something. It seems to me that the most fitting avenue for you was to take the classes, learn what you wanted, then fail them. Once you had learned enough for whatever job you wanted, then you could go to an employer and tell them your creative approach to learning. If they agreed and thought you knew your stuff, then they could hire you without a degree. You are choosing the path less travelled and you need to accept the bad with the good. The world doesn't owe you a right to learn however you feel is best AND to have a university award you a degree for it. Either follow the path to a degree or take your own learning journey. Don't expect the U of O to put their stamp of approval on your journey with a degree if you want to take your own road though.

You can't take this path now that you've been banned, but that's a result of your own actions. You had this option being a senior student. If you were barred from a specific class, you could have found a mentor another way. The ways around the system were limited only by your creativity. You chose your own path Marc, now walk it and let the rest of us travel our paths. I wish you the best of luck, but your immature behaviour and name calling are going to limit you.

Marc Kelly: I am not interested in you or your situation, I made that clear in an earlier comment on your other post. If people are interested in your crusade, they can get updates on your blog. For the rest of us, please refrain from badgering us with more emails. Your obnoxious activities are injuring your cause, not helping it. Now please fuck off and shut the hell up.

Your mass emails are disrespectful to your peers, and you have no foundation to stand on anymore. The real debate is over, and you're dragging yourself and the SFUO through the mud by continuing this. If you want to learn without boundaries, do it at home. If you want to create useful science with an established procedure and replicable results, find another university and enroll.

I have a message for Mr. Kelly and it is as follows: please stop sending e-mails, no one, and I repeat NO ONE cares about your situation nor do they or at very least myself have any kind of sympathy for you. PLEASE STOP SENDING OUT E-MAILS.

It's a spam attack!Allan Rock just sent out another one of his "Snap-Shots" to thousands of recipients.Why aren't you morons calling to have his balls cut off?Are his emails intelligent?Are they respectful?Are they thought provoking?

We students are paying for the marketing team that spews out that shit. Do you think the posts to his Rock Talk blog get censored and selected for niceties?Does a bear do it in the woods?Do you think there is some image engineering going on here at all?Is that guy for real?He was for real with Marc there… or was he…?Have you actually read his posts?"Canada's university in the service of the world."Hello?

Jesus.

At least Kelly is giving it to us for free, not making us pay for it!And, huh, it get hundreds of responses, not three, like on the stoner blog or what ever it’s called.

It's false to say everybody doesn't care about Marc Kelly. In fact, we are all concerned by what happens. It's our duty to understand if we want to be a good judge. I want to receive in my university mailbox all kind of mails about the university's problems, including those of Marc. The administration have to explain us why there is a problem and I assure Marc Kelly of my support until the end of this process. If I can do something for you, Marc, Tell me:mgalo078@uottawa.ca

Marie Galophe said..." It's false to say everybody doesn't care about Marc Kelly. In fact, we are all concerned by what happens. "

Equally false. No, we aren't. If you're going to point out a universal fallacy, don't replace it with one of your own.

"It's our duty to understand if we want to be a good judge."

Obviously most of the people commenting here do not feel it's part of their "duty" as students who happen to attend the same university as Marc Kelly to read or appreciate his situation. As for being a "good" judge, that's up to each person too.

"I want to receive in my university mailbox all kind of mails about the university's problems, including those of Marc."

Great, read his blog here. That doesn't excuse him sending out emails after receiving hundreds of requests to NOT send out unsolicited emails to the entire university. I have no concern for Mr. Kelly, personally. I read his proposal and some other writing, listened to his tape, and I have no interest in supporting or defending him. I don't want him to be part of the university.

"The administration have to explain us why there is a problem "

No, they don't. They don't have to tell you why they deregistered another student. In fact, if you read your student handbook you'll see that student privacy rules forbid them from doing so. And 99% of students who managed to get themselves into Marc's position, considering how incredibly difficult it is to actually get kicked out of university, would be grateful to have the details kept private. Mr. Kelly is a rebel without a clue, and has decided that the university must teach him by HIS methods and rules, and that this is somehow his civil right. He's an idiot. If his methods were applied to the university as a whole it would render degrees and disciplines utterly meaningless, and reduce "higher education" to whatever pompous young students felt was a most amusing way to pass the time. If you feel that Mr. Kelly is wiser and has more insight than the entire administration and professors of U of Ottawa (minus the one or two instructors who support some part of his agitations), can't he email you privately?

I would ask, again, that you cease sending these e-mails to around 36,000 individuals who have neither the inclination nor the time to get involved with your purported "cause." Students who are interested in your problems can consult the blog you provided the address for in your last e-mail, or contact you themselves. You have no legitimate reason to continue with your mass mailings, and I would suggest the reactions of irritation and anger they promote adversely affects whatever concerns you are trying to raise.

At the very least, I would suggest posting on your blog the means to for individuals to remove themselves from whatever mailing list you are abusing.

I SUPPORT U FULLY MARC KELLY!! UR A HERO TO US ALL. STOP ALLAN ROCK, SAVE OUR UNIVERSITY. YOUR ON THE VERGE OF BECOMING AN OTTAWA U LEGEND IF YOU CAN PULL THROUGH. MY GRANDCHILDREN WILL BE TALKING ABOUT YOU IF YOU STOP ALLAN ROCK. MAY GOD BLESS YOU.

I support you 100% I think Alan Rock should go back to his dirty politics and he is an asshole. If i ever see him i will make sure to nod and walk away. He was not professional at all. If he did not want people to walk into his office he should have closed his door. He thinks he is the big shit. He is just a prick like the others in his administration. Bunch of fools running a show.

It is obvious that you are a very unstable individual. Please put your energy and efforts into seeking psychiatric help. Stop this pointless crusade that is nothing more than an attention seeking endeavor. You are not bettering society or accomplishing anything beneficial for students of uOttawa. All you are doing is sending junk into student's email boxes and making quite an ass out of yourself in the process.

This will come to an end eventually and you won't win. And then everyone will forget about you and your desperate attempt to be some kind of martyr and it will all be for nothing. In fact I think everyone is trying to forget you now. You're a headache. Please go away.

I think that while the constant emails are getting to be a bit much, its important to remain respectful.

Regardless of Marc's topic or his research methodology, this case presents a lot of issues in regards to our academic freedom. Where would we be today without the thinkers who stepped outside the line and said the world was round and the universe didn't revolve around england???

The point is, standardization is nice and all, but freedom of thought and our rights to step ut of line should not be addressed with this degree of punitive measures and personal vendettas.

I'm on Team Kelly for this one, even though I do disagree with some of his methods of expressing himself. It's the principle of the thing. Any of us could be in this situation one day and we'd be pretty pissed off too.

ok fellas this is just to inform ppl out there, this long message by anonymous earlier about not supporting "mr.kelly" and reading his term paper or whatever and bashing the faculty.. plus all these huge words and creative sentence structure.. that is a prof himself writing a letter acting as a student.. pretty obvious, i just find it sad that he chooses this way of acting like a student to turn everything against kelly.. really man as long as this kelly dude is paying his tuition fee's, then profs should not get the right to kick him out like that.

Marc Kelly, what the *fuck* is your problem? I privately, in no uncertain terms, asked you to remove me from your list last week. You said you would comply; I provided you with my uOttawa email address. Yet I'm still receiving your bullshit spam. I'm finished being polite; I no longer care if your statements truly provide evidence for discrimination on the part of Ottawa U or if they are simply self-indulgent propaganda. You're a waste of space and I hope you fucking die, you worthless piece of shit.

Shame on you Kelly. Show some respect to those students having ACTUAL justifiable difficulties with the admin. Do you feel as small as your pathetic argument by now or is this all fueling u? You know its over for you. No university would ever accept you. So what are you fighting for anymore? I guess you dont even know anymore and you're regretting everything you did by now.

In my culture we have a religious saying (please mind me) "God blesses he who knows him limits and abides by them". Grow up for your own sake.

Dear I don't know who you are cause you don't say your name,I think the right question in this situation is:WHY A GUY TAKE THE RISK TO LOSE EVERYTHING WITHOUT ANY REASON?I'm a kind of person who suppose first people are intelligent, or, at least, have a kind of instinct, manifestated, in a case like your, by anonymous. No one is stupid, that's why education is a right and we have to defend it. Second, I think we have to create the university in which we want to learn, like a citizen have to choose in wich kind of society he wants to live. I'm not a dog and I refuse all kind of thing presented like: 'it's like that and shut up". That's why, YES, Marc can join me via my private mail address. (Cf:"If you feel that Mr. Kelly is wiser and has more insight than the entire administration and professors of U of Ottawa (minus the one or two instructors who support some part of his agitations), can't he email you privately?")I have nothing to hide. I AM NOT AFFRAID, GUY: WE ARE THE WORLD AND THE STORY BEGINS NOW, EACH DAY.

hmmm ... I guess you missed my 2 posts and 3 response emails asking to be removed from whatever email list Marc Kelly has access to? I don't care if Allan Rock did it too! Please don't tell me you are suggesting that two wrongs make a right ...

Stop spamming me! If you really wish to build a case for yourself, you should probably avoid the urge of breaking into someone's office. You do NOT have my support and will never receive it with this kind of attitude.

I can assure you that the majority of the people who would be upset are those who are int he workforce and already graduated. Current students see MArcs gestures as, yes, possibly a bit out of line, however a step in the right direction...

All I have to say is this world is full of whiny complainers. Suck it up and grow up.

Obviously you've done something stupid. I don't see this happening to every student. Not even close. If they rejected your thesis, do a new one, or leave. The university owes you NOTHING, and thats what people have to realise. Ask for a refund in tuition payment. hahaha

And as for the people complaining about high tuition fees, go to college for cheaper education. I don't mind paying for better education, because my degree is ACTUALLY useful and ill make the money back working...

You certainly should not have been deregistered and I believe you have every right to expect a fair resolution to this issue from uOttawa in a timely manner.

However, the more important issue is that while you are claiming to want to think independently, freely and creatively you have published online a "research" paper which is nothing more than a poorly executed and biased re-hash of ideas from 40 years ago. How exactly is your work independent, free and creative? If you were one of my students I would have sent you back to the library to actually read the literature and come up with an idea that is truly independent and your own.

If you really had something new and important to say you wouldn't need to pad your paper with quotes from other people. Clearly, you have very little to say and need to rely on the important thoughts of other people to make yourself feel smart and perhaps prove to others you are "well read". Anyone can go on Google and find quotes, out of context, which support their own argument without actually reading the source material.

You appear to think that your arguments about grades, free thought and educational reform are new. Wake up and take an honest look at the really innovative things that ARE happening in academic institutions around the world, including their successes AND failures. The fact that you clearly don't have an understanding of the past/present research in this general area, in addition to the fact that you aren’t even coming close to posing any new ideas, only goes to show how much of a disservice Professor Rancourt has done you. His job should be to push you in new directions, towards new ideas, rather than sacrificing your own academic career in order for him to achieve his political end game. Has he even discussed the fact that the mechanism of his power is mobilizing a naive and enthusiastic sub-population within the student body? And how does it sit with you that while he essentially characterizes the uOttawa administration and faculty as controlling dictators he continues to take a salary from them? In 2006 he happily took home over $120,000 dollars (publically available on the HR website at uOttawa - http://www.hr.uottawa.ca/compensation/more.php).

I agree with you – the University environment should allow us to think creatively, question assumptions and be completely free to do so. But everything you have said and written has been said and written before. How about something new Marc? Come on, impress me please, I honestly want to hear something NEW even if it shakes my own beliefs and assumptions to the core.

If you want to question something, I suggest taking an honest look at Professor Rancourt's motives and how they have served you as a student. Six years, no degree, deregistered and no hope of ever being taken seriously by the academic world - how's that working for you?

Kind Regards,

A uOttawa Professor not involved with the physics DTPC or Professor Rancourt, but you’ll have to take my word for it I guess.

The University of Ottawa has every right to restrict you from continuing your research. You are a Physics student...analyzing the effects fo a classroom environment on physics has everything to do with a sociological perspective of YOUR OWN EXPERIENCES, and has NOTHING TO DO WITH PHYSICS ITSELF.

You are making it more clear now than ever before that most university students lack any common sense.

I couldn't give a damn about Kelly's mini-revolt, and I really don't know why I'm receiving his emails. He does not deserve the attention he is getting; just another hapless radical with what he believes to be a cause. Mr. Rock is a gentlemen with a distinguished record who has served his country both in and out of politics and to have this Kelly try to create a storm and attempt to embarrass the President is pitiful and pathetic.

I don't know who you are, what faculty you are in or what program. Furthermore, I don't entirely know what you did to get in trouble. Frankly, I don't give a damn.

Here's how I see it... If you have to see Allan Rock (President and Vice-Chancellor of Ottawa U)you probably screwed up big time... If you don't know what you did wrong, then you don't deserve to be a student at this university.

I'm really amazed you're still at this... and I really enjoy how you call your peers who disagree with you conformists (for the most part anyway). The fact is, there is plenty of room for creativity and freedom within the umbrella of scientific inquiry... so why not apply your so-called physics methods (video camera... that's about it right?) and apply them to a brand new field... Kellian physics! First things first though: get a bachelors of physics by doing something a little more conventional, and for a masters or PhD thesis go nuts with your matrices. An honours project is what... 8 months? If you develop this field as a branch of physics you can monoppolize the field and even start your own journal! That would show everyone, right?

Or wait, doesn't science work by having your work evaluated by peers... wait a sec, haven't most people who have read your thesis condemned it as a glorified rant? Hmm... I thought scientists were supposed to be a little more humble when taking criticism. So 2 requests:

1. Stop exaggerating so much: an honours project is a small stepping stone on the long path of a career, and like I said, with a little more experience you may be able to pull off this interdisciplinary feat, which at the moment is severely under-developed.

2. Don't send any more e-mails to your peers, if anything, because they are unsolicited. Take your failure as a sign that this approach doesn't work, and try affiliating yourself with a professor who cares about your academic well-being, and won't encourage you to make a fool of yourself.

- 4th year biochem. student who loves his honours project, and did the work to get it approved.

The popular comment layout is common, so it is easily recognized scanning to post a comment. If the comment section is in a different format, then I am going to spend more time trying to decipher what everything means.study abroad

THE UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA'S MISSION, OBJECTIVES, GOALS, VISION, AND VALUES

ALLAN ROCK, PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY

Allan Rock decides who speaks.

THOUGHTS ON STUDENT OPPRESSION...

"The oppressor is solidary with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealth with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor -- when he stops making pious, sentimental, and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love. True solidarity is found only in the plenitude of this act of love, in its existentiality, in its praxis. To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce."